Organizational Change Application

07/11/2022

Dr. Glenn Baxley

The Watershed Situation

Life comprises a series of moments that call for firm decision-making that pushes one out of their comfort zone. These decisions often serve as the turning point of life that change how one processes things. And these changes generally mark a shift in lifestyle, adding to one's experience and perspective and even abandoning some of the old beliefs that were holding one back or standing in the way as a hurdle to a particular choice. If I explore my own experiences, I will mark the initiation of my small startup business as the watershed event of my life. As a student, I never imagined that I would be able to conjure up the right amount of courage, passion, or dedication to achieve something like this after working as a content writer for a short period. In my first month, I received quality training from my experienced managers, who mentored me in managerial tasks, how to manage client interactions and assign work to writers. As I gained all this experience, I realized how I could, with the knowledge of writing, can hire new people and step up to manage my den of writers. With that thought, I decided to quit the job and open up my online platform that offers services concerning writing all types of content, whether it's marketing tasks, academic assignments, or some statistical work.

My Startup Experience

That was the watershed event of my life. The possibility remains one of the most significant happenings of my life. That is because it remains the first time I decided to take control of my economic proceedings, where I had decided, on my own, that I needed to work toward this dream and make it a reality to face the financial challenges of the world. The reason why I consider it an important milestone is because it is something that people around my circle haven't done so. As a student, achieving something like this on my own after six months of job experience wasn't someone I thought I could do. Throughout this experience, there were many trials and tribulations. And because of them, I obtained so much exposure that I wouldn't gain in my academic life.

The Bridges Model Of Transition

Examining this experience based upon William Bridges Model of Transitions, the three critical stages present in this professional encounter include Endings, Neutral Zone and New Beginnings. Now, often, the difference between transition and change is misinterpreted. In Bridges Model, the definition of transition remains very clear. The transition phase marks the catalyzation of inner psychological processes that the person, whose experience is the subject matter, processes at their own pace by internalizing the changes. Moreover, the person has to accept the new circumstances that arise with the change.

The Ending Phase

Shedding light upon the transition model, the three first stage of it includes the Ending phase, which is further divided into five categories. The ending stage appears at the beginning, which might seem confusing. The ending steps mark the end of the way of life from which you've shifted. That phase remains paradoxical because it marks the end of one journey and the initiation of another. The Ending step calls for identifying losses, what habits one needs to leave behind and which ones he needs. That can include relationships, teams, approaches, locations, schedules and whatnot (Miller, 2017)..

Components of the Ending phase

The ending phase of my experience included quitting my old job as a content writer so that I guarantee complete focus, energy and dedication to my new setup. Hence, I had to let go of my previous source of earnings and rely on the available resources, such as my savings. To take the step of the ending phase by step, the following information is essential.

Disengagement

One of the components of the Ending Phase includes disengagement. The fact that I had to disengage from my previous work commitments is essential. With it comes to professional disengagement, it is often looked at as a negative act. However, in my case, disengagement remained crucial as I was about to unlock my potential, which required me to completely obliviate any hurdles that might divide my attention and disable me from focusing entirely on my goal (Tausch, 2014)

Dismantling

The second component of the ending phase is dismantling the planned behaviours. This particular component called for reconsidering the old lifestyle's norms. For instance, as a content writer, I had a specific work schedule which called for working for three hours every day. Also, the work ethic called for the submission of work before the deadline. However, with my business initiative, I had to revisit the work ethic I had created and dismantle it to form new norms and principles that could be beneficial for fulfilling the requirements of the goals I had planned. And this included increased working hours.

Disidentification

The next component of ending is disidentification. This particular step calls for a disassociation with a specific idea that you hold. The disidentification step is purely psychological. And it calls for accepting one's role in the new position. For instance, I had to disidentify myself as a content writer and move on to assuming my role as the leading personality of my setup. Hence, I needed to realize that my previous roles had changed, and I had to disidentify myself from them.

Disenchantment

The next component, disenchantment, includes the realization that specific goals no longer serve the purpose. Or that a particular approach is no longer viable and might be problematic if continued as a solution to new challenges. Hence, the disenchantment component meant I had to revisit some of my old approaches toward work. For instance, I can no longer take voluntary breaks by merely informing my manager. I had to work every day to manage things and plan my academic tasks and my writers simultaneously. Hence, the old approach where I spare the weekends for homework was no longer viable.

Disorientation

The last step, which is that of disorientation, refers to the psychological challenge where a person who has shifted from one journey to another can feel confused or uncertain about their choice. Like everyone, I also felt disoriented as I managed all my writers and platform independently without any partner. As a result, in the beginning, some of the tasks, such as assigning work to writers based on their expertise, or even finding writers of a specific subject, was difficult. And these setbacks caused disorientation which is a part of the entire process. And natural for anyone to feel challenged at the beginning of their startup initiatives.

The Neutral Zone

The Neutral Zone is the second step of the Transition model. And it calls for letting go of the previous practices. What happens when people are in the middle of the transition where they have let go of the earlier methods but there are not fully grasping the changes yet. At this stage, there is usually a psychological chain of processes that are taking place in a person's life. The entire process of realigning from your old life patterns to new ways occurs here. Hence, it is the core phase of the transition process. That is where a person becomes open to learning new things. In my experience, I was in the Neutral Zone in the second week of my setup. I had finally crossed the dismantling and disorientation phases and was now looking for new approaches to perform my tasks. I started by creating a new schedule I would test for a week.

Moreover, I had arranged some communication portals in the testing phase to always stay connected with my writers. However, these strategies were still in the testing phase and hadn't sunk. There were moments of confusion when I couldn't find a way to manage my academic tasks. And had to come up with a plan for specific weekdays with my class schedule. Hence, I was sorting out my priorities and findings on ways to have morning and evening shifts for my startup. And looking for ideas to time everything in a complimentary manner. Also, I was in the process of hiring new writers and observing whether they had the aptitude. Also, I had to acquaint myself with the clients who were in for the long term to assess their needs and use these details for future use, briefing my writers on them. The positive thing about the neutral zone was that the more I planned, the better I felt, as exploring options helped me gain confidence and restored my self-esteem that I could manage everything, including my studies, clients and writers.

New Beginning

The phase of a new beginning marks the start of the journey. That is when you assume the role and fully accept your duties for the new position. Hence, it is the adoption of values, development of principles and attitudes that contribute towards the new goals that one has set up for themselves. Here, the assumption of the new identity occurs when people feel geared up for their new tasks. At this stage, the reorientation is complete. In my experience, the new beginning phase happened after a month when I had sorted out a few things, my plans were final, and now everything was functioning at its designated time. That is when the clients started ordering work, and the writers initiated their part of the job. That marked the new beginning phase where things began to function, and all the blueprints that I had put together were in execution.

The Three Insights

The three significant insights that I achieved through this writing activity include:

· Realizing the significance of the psychological effort that goes into initiating something independently to achieve your goals

· Planning and efficiency can help one get through the transition phases effectively. And can yield successful results

· The third insight is that it is essential not to rush through any transition phases. Experiencing all these phases, including the disorientation, the confusion and the imbalance, is necessary. And all of this disassociation builds up as a source of motivation contributing towards the achievement of the task.

References Miller, J. L. (2017). "Managing Transitions: Using William Bridges' Transition Model and a Change Style Assessment Instrument to Inform Strategies and Measure Progress in Organizational Change Management. The 12th International Conference on Performance Measurement in Libraries Proceedings, 357-364. Tausch, J. B. ( 2014). When group memberships are negative: the concept, measurement, and behavioural implications of psychological disidentification. 'Informa UK Limited'.